Meanings
plural batrachomyomachies
- A petty quarrel.
Among mammals, stoats and weasels have been mentioned as likely allies, in this batrachomyomachy where the frogs are men, but the alliance, certainly in the case of stoats, would prove dangerous.
1917, “Nature's Police Force”, in The Living Age, volume 294, Boston: The Living Age Company, page 6982 more examples
"And all 'prentice-boys, The bold lads shall fight first, with good quarterstaves, in Bideford Market, till all heads are broken; and the head which is not broken, let the back belong to it pay the penalty of the noble member's cowardice. After which grand tournament, to which that of Tottenham shall be but a flea-bite and a batrachomyomachy——"
1855, Charles Kingsley, chapter V, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLCBetween these two kinds there rages a natural warfare as worthy of a burlesque poet as any batrachomyomachy that ever was fought out. It is no bad sport to watch through a magnifying glass the reciprocal attack and defence of their little lines of battle and posts of vantage.
1899, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Under the Microscope, Under the Microscope
Origin
From Batrachomyomachia (Ancient Greek βάτραχος, frog, μῦς, mouse, and μάχη, battle), a comic epic parodying the Iliad in which a diving frog accidentally drowns a mouse riding on his back, prompting a war between the species.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
batrachomyomachy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/batrachomyomachy
“batrachomyomachy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/batrachomyomachy. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “batrachomyomachy,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/batrachomyomachy.
Source: batrachomyomachy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.